The GBT – The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.

click above image for boxscore

THE GOOD: Defense. Reid Brignac made a spectacular play when he ranged towards the third base line in shallow left field, dove for a ball, got up and got the runner at first. Sam Fuld added two sliding/diving catches of his own…Felipe Lopez. When we first saw yesterday’s lineup and noticed Flip was back in the clean-up spot, we were noticeably scared. But then he singled home the Rays first run in the first inning. Then he followed that up with an RBI-double and a home run. We will gladly eat crow on this one…David Price. Price was dealing, tossing 8 shutout innings, striking out 9 and walking just 2. He started the White Sox with a steady dose of his fastball. In fact, his first 32 pitches were fastballs, not mixing in another pitch until the 3rd inning. But then 25 of his next 82 pitches were changeups getting 3 swinging strikes and 3 called strikes with that pitch.

THE BAD: Lineup. The lineup produced last night, but Evan Longoria can’t get back soon enough.

THE TELLING: Johnny Damon is still day-to-day with a sore finger, but is hoping to return on Thursday. He was also named the American League’s co-player of the week…BJ Upton was given the day off…Evan Longoria is still hoping to be back by April 29th…Alex Torres was named the International League’s (AAA) pitcher of the week.

THE JUNKYARD DOGS WEBTOPIA…

Carl Crawford was booed yesterday by the Red Sox fans, but then was given a (sarcastic?) standing ovation after hitting a double, just his 8th hit of the season (thanks Larry). [ESPN]

Jeff Niemann confirmed that he switched agents…four years ago. [TampaBay.com]

DOWN ON THE FARM…

DURHAM 4, Gwinnett 1: The Bulls won on a trot-off 3-run HR in the bottom of the 11th inning…This came on the heels of a strong outing by Dirk Hayhurst, who took a perfect game into the 6th inning. He finished with 6.2 innings, giving up 1 run on 2 hits, no walks and 6 strikeouts…Cory Wade, Mike Ekstom and Dane de la Rosa combined for 4.1 innings of scoreless relief, striking out 2 and walking 1.

Jackson 6, MONTGOMERY 4: Nick Barnese struck out 5 in 4 innings, but gave up 4 runs, 3 via 2 home runs…RF John Matulia, playing his first game off the DL, hit a 3-run home run…SS Tim Beckham was 0-4 with 2 strikeouts.